Hiroshige

what is Hiroshige?

And can we eat it?

&c.

http://www.dublinwriters.org/haiku/images/hiroshige.jpg
http://www.colorado.edu/ealld/img/Hiroshige.gif
http://www.cjn.or.jp/ukiyo-e/imgs/hiroshige-nihonbashi.gif
etc

Mark, I am deeply ashamed of you ;P

Utagawa Hiroshige is(was) a superlative Japanese woodcut artist of the errr 18th/19th centuries? Just looked it up: 1797-1858, so I was more or less OTM.

An artist of the floating world, shall we say. He rocks.

Pretty pictures, Nipper!

Hiroshige v Kyosai FITE!

I'm an Utamaro man myself.

Do you like anime?

I like Urusei Yatsura.

But, yeah those pictures are quite nice. I like them.

Wish I knew more about him specifically but lord knows what I've seen of his stuff is amazing. There's a really sharp professor of Japanese art history here and he always puts some fine collections on reserve.

UCL, where I work, has some very good Hiroshige prints in its collection. It's nice being able to hold them and see them up close, not just on walls of galleries behind glass.

I'm a fan yes, but I don't think he's in the Hokusai league - he largely lacks the daring and originality. He created lovely images, and I find it hard to imagine anyone disliking him. I like his snow images particularly, and since they're almost monochrome that makes me wish I could see lots of drawings by him. I don't know if there are surviving sketchbooks - you see these by Hokusai quite often, and I'd have thought Hiroshige's popularity and his living more recently would make it likely that some survive. I also like some of his strangely composed late works, where some nearby details are enlarged out of all proportion - the best is of a carp-kite.

I prefer him to Hokusai -- nothing wrong with pretty pictures in my opinion. Yeah, Hokusai's sketch book are the bomb though. Kyosai is cool, though a bit scary. Utamaro is the best., though I'm not sure we should compare landscape with brothel pics.

I kind of see Hokusai and Hiroshige a little bit like Picasso and Matisse. The latter in each pair painted lovely images, and deserves all the praise for that. The former was the more daring and exciting and original. I love all four, but prefer the former in both pairs.

Why am I making such lame analogies?

Utamaro was an extraordinary artist, and deserving of his high status. There are some bizarre, subtle little moments in his prints that are utterly magical. Hokusai is still my favourite ukiyo-e artist though, for his wildness. Favourite anecdote: he entered a painting contest. The theme given was 'autumn leaves in water'. He took a large piece of paper, charged his brush with blue and painted five long, wavy, parallellish (sp?) lines. Then he took a chicken and dipped its feet in russet paint, and shoved it off across his painting. This was two centuries ago. How can you not love that?

My old boss once described Hokusai as Van Gogh, the madness,etc.

In what way was Hokusai mad? He led a successful and productive life, and lived to the age of 90.

She was describing them both to a client -- in that Hiroshige was more of the fitter inner, whilst Hokusai went his own way and did his own thing. Maybe it was just a sales pitch.

you lot are far more knowledgable than I. I just like Hirosage b/c it's purty. ;)